In this post yesterday by Blizzard they state they don’t think server mergers would work in Classic because
and the reason for this is simple; we don’t like the idea of someone losing their unique name on a realm, and this is doubly true for classic where your identity in the community is a major aspect of the game.
What Blizzard doesn’t understand is that the damage to peoples names has already been done. What do you think happens when a Horde player transfers his original Classic character to Faerlina or an Alliance player does the same to Benediction? The answer is they lose their original name. Unless you have a super unique made up name the chances are the forced transfer to these mega servers to keep your guild alive is going to come at a cost of losing your original Classic names.
Maybe since we’re not “technically forced” they aren’t responsible but if they did a merger it would literally be “forced” and then people can whine at them for it. IMO this is a ridiculous stance to not do server merging. If anything you could even merge them to a new server with a name save date similar to the launch of Classic that way its completely fair for all involved.
Nonetheless this take was just outrageous to me and hopefully others caught the irony in it
“We aren’t trying to stop smaller servers from becoming even smaller, and we aren’t trying to prevent so-called “megaservers” from forming. We are simply trying to give players who want to move an easy option to do so. It’s not perfect or complete, but it’s a relief valve.”
Good to know.
“Ultimately, we did end up opening FCMs to and from a variety of destinations, and we will continue to monitor and modify the source and destination realms as time passes. We could have done a lot better here however, or at least been more communicative and I do sincerely apologize for that.”
Yep, they did.
“I’ll also be the first to acknowledge that we probably should have done this sooner.”
Yep.
So do it right now.
Free Character Moves, for anyone not on a Mega Realm.
On Classic (Era), they appear to have linked the realms rather than merge them. I believe this to be true because when I refresh Who, the toon names are ‘name’-‘server’ just like I remember when they did this in retail. They could do this with TBCC and I’m kind of surprised they haven’t. Perhaps enough of these servers aren’t ‘dead’ enough to warrant such a move, yet.
They talked about this in the original post. The issue is it is a very anti-classic move. They weren’t wrong that names do hold value in these expansions. Communities are formed and reputations are built. If there can be 4 Illystra’s it’s weird if one is known for ninja looting but the other might be known for hosting great pugs.
I think the reason they did this with Classic Era realms is because those are basically a graveyard and there’s nobody left to even complain about it. Realistically those servers exist as a trophy case and nothing more.
It is my perception that we got World of Warcraft Classic which was not Vanilla, and we got World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade Classic which is not TBC, mainly because the player-base isn’t what it was ‘back in the day’, so I perceive that 'anti-classic is rather subjective. Toon boosts and the in-game shop are a subject of controversy but, like them or not, they are part of classic.
As you say, there could be 4 Illystra’s, Illystra-Windseeker, Illystra-Westfall, Illysta-Atiesh, Illystra-Mankrik. The appending of the server name makes each toon’s name unique so there’s no need for the confusion of toons as you describe. I believe you are correct about why they did this solution for Classic (Era). Sooner or later, they will probably do it with TBCC.
That response is disgusting. It’s a wall of mostly useless drivel that came many months later than it should have. We’ve been ignored for all this time, and the best they can do is that? It’s not even on the regular forum. It’s on the sycophant forum.
“Merging has name problems.”
-Not if you give the characters with higher hours played the priority on name conflicts. Didn’t anyone think of that? You already record play time.
“We don’t want to do connected realms.”
-You damn well should if you’re not going to merge.
“We realized that players are narcissists that want to stack populations and we want to stand behind them rather than regulate.”
-Basically the opposite of what you should be doing. You should have faction restrictions, especially on transfers.
Potential Solution: Benediction has 85%-ish alliance and Faeralina has about the same but reversed. Allow alliance to transfer to faeralina, and horde to transfer to benediction for free. AND incentivize them to do so.
Let them choose between some kind of options upon transferring to the underdog faction:
Pick 1:
30% increased experience gained
30% increased honor gained
+1 badge for your daily
Let this bonus last for like three weeks. I bet people would transfer.
Blizz’s official response was that they like the idea of bonuses and don’t like the idea of opening free transfers to underdog faction realms because they “don’t think people will willingly go to underdog realms” so give them incentives.
Blizzard should just do what Discord does with screen names. You can give yourself whatever name you want, and they add on hidden numbers so names can be differentiated. For example, I’m Shadows#xxxx on Discord, but when I log on it only shows up as Shadows. This would give the game a lot more flexibility with character names, and it could be done on Retail too.
All the horde transfer to Bene, then all the Alliance realize all the horde came to Bene and they are no longer majority faction so they all xfer to Faeralina.
I think the difference is, in one case people would have no agency at all over it… plus just the whole process gets messy… 3 servers merge and you have 3 rogues named Slice. At least two are forced to change names without any agency at all… and how do you decide which gets to keep their name? No matter what you do 2 of the 3 people are gonna be really pissed off. At least with transfers there’s no confusion over who has precedent and it’s a voluntary decision. I get you may feel like you don’t have any choice but to xfer… but it’s still a decision you’re making.
You think people are going to hop onto a server with 200 vs 20k and kill their ability to play the game for more exp, honor or a badge… things most people don’t even need anymore?
Which would kind of defeat the entire purpose of having a name…
“Hey Shadows! I mean, are you the Shadows I know or another random Shadows? I know a rogue named Shadows and he’s definitely one of the 500 of you here in Shattrath. If only I could figure out which…”
It’s not even that… I think the easiest/most defensible option is usually the status quo so that’s what they’re going with. The fact that it also happens to be the most profitable solution for them is probably a nice little bonus though.